Film

“Stargate Universe” and Cowboys & Aliens will shoot here

Bruised, ashy humans stumble coughing out of the smoking wreckage that was once their ship. They blink and squint in the relentless sun that bleaches out the scene. The broken survivors peer at the new alien landscape, empty of trees, unforgiving. It’s Planet Whatever. It’s also the cracked dirt and will-be tumbleweeds of the Westside, and if the cameraman turns around, miles of tract housing will stretch into the distance. There might even be a Walgreens.

The high desert stands in for harsh alien landscape in countless films. When some idiot goes crashing into another planet, our beautiful, stark mesas—the ones we hide in to shoot guns and drink dusty cans of shitty beer —stand in for the other world. We’re foreign. Other. That’s cool.

Gov. Bill Richardson was pleased to announce yesterday that an episode of Syfy’s “Stargate Universe” will be filming in the Farmington area from May 17 through May 21. He is pleased to announce today that the movie Cowboys & Aliens will be in the state from mid-June to mid-August. Filmmaker Jon Favreau (Iron Man 2, Elf) will direct the Western/alien invasion mashup, which stars Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford.